Psychotic
by Anonymousgiraffe
Summary: Fanfic written by my friend anonymouswhale. What really happened to Nicodemus?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

 **Baz**

No one told me life was going to be like this.

It's so...dull. Once the world's cooled off and you're not dashing everywhere, fighting Mages and Humdrums and Old Families out for blood, it's like being a Normal. A little flat and two jobs, and shopping lists with entries like toothpaste and deodorant.

I almost want something to happen, something dramatic. Something like another Humdrum. I'd never say it out loud, of course. The one time I did, Snow got this look in his eyes like he was somewhere else _._ I had to shout his name and slap him before he managed to come back.

But still. When the World of Mages was on the brink of destruction-the Old Families at one turn, the Humdrum at the other-there was no time to sit down on the old couch and drink a cup of tea and search the newspaper for jobs. There was no time to take Snow shopping for new clothes. I understand that this stuff needs to happen, that otherwise we'd have both gone broke and Snow would've worn his Watford pyjamas everywhere, but it just feels so wrong. Something I'd have done with Daphne, or Fiona. Not with the boy I've both loved and hated for eight years straight.

I just need to get out. Just for a day or two. Take a break. Leave Snow and his wings and his grocery lists behind. I need to be who I was before all of this-walking the halls like nobody and nothing could ever touch me.

 **Simon**

I'm worried about Baz. He looks kind of shell-shocked all the time, like he still can't believe it's over.

Neither can I, honestly. It's been nearly a year and a half, and I'm still plagued with nightmares. Baz says he knows when I'm having them, because my wings and tail tend to slash around. I used to wake up and he'd have me in his arms. He said it was because I'd give him a concussion if he didn't control my wings, but he didn't look as if he minded it much, either.

I think Baz's problem is with the mundanity of it all. He serves coffee at Starbucks in the afternoons from two to six, and he does the shopping every week, and we live in the flat Penny and I shared before she and Micah moved together to America. And Baz doesn't ever say it, but I see it in his eyes, when I start talking about the grocery list or which company does the best window-cleaning. This look, like, _Really? Really, Snow?_

He doesn't call me Simon anymore. It's not like he did it much before, but it would slip out every once in awhile, especially if we were alone. Now, I'm just Snow. Snow this and Snow that and _Snow, come here so I can fix your wings._

I don't understand what's happening. I thought once the Humdrum was gone and the Mage was dead, we'd figure out some kind of normal life. I thought we'd be happy. I thought we'd be able to forget.

But I guess I should have known that would be hard.

 **Baz**

"Are you going out?"

Snow appears at the top of the stairs. He's in his pyjamas, one of Bunce's books in one hand. His chin is shadowed with day-old stubble. He looks a mess.

"Yes," I say.

"Can I come?"

I sneer. "No."

He blinks, shoving his free hand in his pocket. "Oh. Okay. Where are you going?"

"On a walk."

I'm lying. Shamelessly. It feels rather good to lie, after so long. The first few months after the Leavers' Ball, Snow and I told each other everything. Like we were girls playing Truth or Dare. Like there were no boundaries between us.

"So late?" he says.

He's trying to pretend like he doesn't care, but I've known Simon Snow long enough to read through his uneven smile.

"Yeah. I just need...fresh air."

"And I can't come."

"No, Simon."

There's a pause. I look anywhere but his eyes.

He says, after a moment, "You called me Simon."

I raise an eyebrow.

"You haven't done that in a while."

Now that I think about it, I haven't. I shrug. "I guess not."

He looks at the ceiling. I spelled his wings this morning, but my spell's wearing off already-he must have been lying on his back in bed-and I can see the faint outline of the wings, drooping behind him. "Okay," he says. "Well, have fun."

 **Simon**

Merlin. What is _wrong_ with him? He looks pale, like he hasn't eaten in a while. So maybe he's just going out to hunt, but-

But he's never lied about it before.

I know he's lying. I _know_ it.

Baz doesn't take walks.

 **Baz**

I cast a **Drop it** over my shoulder as I leave. It's the spell I invented for my eighth year at Watford, the one I got an award for. It's far from perfect, but it works.

He won't be able to follow me, or interfere in my business, for as long as the spell lasts, which is about four hours. And once I get to Covent Garden, once I finish hunting, he won't know where I've gone. It'll be enough time.

Just a night.

All I need is a night.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

 **Penelope**

Simon calls me when I'm out with Micah.

I ignore his first call, but my mobile just keeps buzzing and buzzing. It's unlike Simon to be this persistent. He hates the phone.

"It's fine," Micah says, after the third call. "Just pick up."

We've just finished dinner, and we're walking down the street towards our favorite little park. Hand in hand, of course. Micah, for all his impressive American spells, is a romantic at heart.

"I'm sorry," I say.

"No, it's cool. He needs you."

He watches as I dig my mobile out of my pocket. It's still got the same spells Mum put on it in eighth year, which means it's impossible to silence. It's really fucking annoying sometimes.

"Hello?" I say.

"Penny!"

Simon sounds frantic. It's at least eleven-thirty in London.

"What's up?"

"Baz left."

"What do you mean?"

Micah puts a steadying hand on my shoulder. He's nice enough he doesn't try to lean in and eavesdrop, but he can see I'm scared.

"He left. He said he was going on a walk, but it's almost midnight, and then he cast his stupid spell on me so I can't go after him, and I'm scared he's going to-"

"Simon. _Simon_."

"He's been so _weird,_ " he says, plaintively. "He hasn't hunted in forever and he never calls me Simon."

I try to remember the article I read on Baz's spell. "How long does the spell last?"

"Four hours."

"Shit. When did he leave?"

"Fifteen minutes ago."

I look at Micah. "Simon, can I put it on speaker? Micah's here."

"Sure," he says, and there's a defeated tone to his voice that I've never heard before.

 **Micah:**

I listen in silence. I'm just an honorary member of the whole Simon-Baz-Penny coven, and I don't usually like to start anything controversial.

But Simon sounds torn up. He really does. I'm not Baz's number-one fan, by _any_ means, but the way Simon's voice cracks when he says his name-you can hear how much he loves him. You can hear how much he cares.

I slip my arm around Penny. Some gut reaction, feeling like she'll leave, the same as Baz. She won't, of course. She was the one who proposed to me. Stopped time. Said she wouldn't start it again until I said yes. Then, once I'd said yes (I would have anyway, a hundred times), she stalled it for a little longer, and we stood in the restaurant among all the frozen waitresses and kissed.

"Micah," Simon says.

"Yeah?"

I put as much sympathy as I can into my voice. Not sure how much it translates over the phone, but I can try.

"Is there a spell you could cast? To reverse his?"

I consider. "The **Drop it?** " It's a brilliant spell. I have to give Baz that. He won all sorts of awards for it, both in England and America. It's supposed to help women alone in cities and spies who don't want to be followed. Not angsty vampires running out on their boyfriends.

"Maybe," I say. "I'd have to think. He didn't use it in the way it's meant to be used, so it's possible."

"Four hours," Simon says.

"He probably just went hunting," says Penny, but from the look she gives me it's obvious she's unconvinced.

 **Penelope**

I tell Simon we'll call him if we think of a spell, and then I hang up. There's nothing else I can do, except curse Baz with everything I've got.

"He _could_ just be hunting," Micah says.

"Then why would he lie? And why would he cast that spell?"

Micah puts an arm around my shoulders. He's tall and warm and steady, and I feel myself relax against him.

"There's nothing we can do," he says.

"I know."

Micah turns my face into his shoulder, and we stand for a moment on the corner. Some kind of stupid painting: _Distraught Mages in New York._ A bloke staggers by and whistles at us.

"It's going to be okay, Pen," Micah says.

"Where'd he _go_?"

He slips his hand into mine. "I don't know. But we'll find him."

"I hate that he does this to him!"

"We'll find him," he repeats.

"But what if-"

"What if the moon crashed into Earth? What if Russia started nuclear war?" He squeezes. "Probably he just needs a break and doesn't want Simon seeing him drunk. Okay?"

"Okay," I say.

But all the same, without exchanging another word, we skip the park and go straight home.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

 **Simon**

He's been gone for three hours. If I hadn't been scared before, I certainly would be now. And I am. Even if he lied and he went hunting, he would have been back an hour ago.

 **Baz**

I should have known.

 **Simon**

Penny calls me back.

I've changed out of my pyjamas, into the football shirt and jeans Baz bought me a few weeks after his Leavers ball. It's almost three in the morning, and all the lights in our fourth-floor flat are on. I'm lighting up the night for him.

"There're all sorts of articles about the spell," Penny says. I have to say, it's a lot better to hear her voice over the phone, rather than through the mouth of a dog. "But nothing on how to break it."

"Nothing?"

"There's only half an hour until it wears off."

I look at the clock. Then back at the phone on the bed. "He could be anywhere. He could be-" I try not to think of the time over Christmas break, where he pulled his car off the road into the forest and set the trees aflame.

"Don't think about it," Penny says, helpfully.

"Something's wrong with him!"

She sighs. "Don't you think you're being a little bit dramatic?"

"What?"

"Simon. He-"

"What?"

Her voice is ragged. "He walked out on you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Maybe he just needed a break."

"He's breaking up with me?"

"No. No. I mean, I don't think so. He loves you. You know he does."

I think about waking up in Baz's arms. I think about kissing him in the forest. I think about the time he pulled me against him and told me that we matched.

"A break," I say.

"Yeah. A break."

"Oh."

She sounds tired. I can hear Micah, murmuring to her in the background. "You're not perfect," she says. "You hated each other for seven years. That doesn't just go away."

 **Baz**

I should have known he wouldn't forget.

 **Simon**

Twenty minutes.

I hung up on Penny after she said we weren't perfect. Now I'm sitting on the steps, which is as far as the **Drop it** will let me go. The wind blows straight through my Manchester United jersey.

She's right though, isn't she? Maybe we do just need a break. Maybe that's all this is. Just Baz getting fed up with our ordinary lives.

I chew my fingernail and wish for one of Watford's sour cherry scones. It's probably awful to have that on my mind when Baz is missing, but I have the feeling he'd laugh if he knew. If he knew. Which he doesn't. Since he's taking a break. From me.

Crowley. He should have told me that that was what he wanted.

 **Baz**

I was just looking for a little adventure. A way to feel alive again.

 **Simon**

Three-fifteen on the dot. The spell breaks, and I'm off.

I hurtle through London, checking all his usual haunts. The pub near the Thames. The park next to 33rd. At four o'clock, I ask the sleep-deprived Normal barista in the Starbucks where he works if she's seen him.

"Basil," she says. "Huh. He's the tall bloke, right? Slicked-back hair? Crazy pale?"

"That's him."

"Just when he filled Dylan's shift yesterday. Sorry."

When I've scanned everywhere that means something to him, I drive back to the flat and park clumsily by the curb. Penny's been ringing nonstop for the last thirty minutes, but I just throw my phone in the passenger seat and put my head down on the steering wheel.

Where _is_ he?

And then I'm sitting upright, clutching at my keys, my phone, anything to keep me grounded. Because no no no no _no._ He couldn't have. He couldn't have.

Only Baz could be so stupid.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

 **Nicodemus**

I went to see Fiona, 'bout a month ago. 'Course, I didn't let her see me. She's a fucking vampire hunter now. Couldn't believe it when I first heard.

She's got herself a nice little flat. Her nephew was over, when I went, and the two of them looked tight. I stood outside and watched through the window and kept real still. Think the nephew heard me, though. He's got all that Pitch in him along with the vampire blood (so to speak), so he's gotta have hearing like a bat. When he turned to the window, I just ran.

I shouldn'ta gone back at all. But sometimes I still miss her-Fi. She's like the last link to Ebb I've got.

Ebb. They buried her west of Watford, somewhere deep in the Wavering Wood. I find it all kinds of creepy that she's got dryads wandering over her body, but that's what she asked for. She really cared 'bout that wood, those grounds. Probably more than anything 'cept me and her goats and the Snow boy.

I wasn't at her funeral, obviously. I wanted to be. Oh, hell, I wanted to be. Bought myself this real nice suit for it, and found a bunch of roses for her grave. (Ebb's always loved roses.) I guess I just forgot. What I am. What I chose.

But Fi's nephew was there, I know. Tasha's kid. When I rescued him from the numpties' cave, he didn't even thank me. Just rushed right off to Watford without a backwards glance. " _I'll be damned to hell twice over before I let a vampire into Watford,"_ he spat. " _Even a gelded one_." And yeah, I'll admit that stung. But that's beside the point. The point is, he never gave a thought to Ebb. He was protecting Snow. Saving Snow. And look-Snow's alive and kicking. So he's got no magic, and those ugly wings to boot, but he's _alive._ What about Ebb, yeah? What about Ebb?

If Pitch had taken me, let me in, I would've saved her. Somehow. Somehow. I'd've been faster than the wind and stronger than a thousand mages, and I'd've lifted her up and taken her away, and I would have been in time.

But he didn't. He didn't take me.

And then he's the one who goes to her funeral, and he's the one who leaves flowers on her grave, and he's the one who cries with Snow, and through that all, he doesn't give a fuck about me. He doesn't even _remember_ me.

I saved his life, and in return, I lost Ebb's.

Look, I had no choice. I'm generally a nice guy-I never go for children. I feed as sparingly as I can. But Ebb is (was) my _sister._ And sure, she could be a pain, all goody-two-shoes when Fi and I just wanted to have a little fun, but she was my blood. And I loved her. And I still love her. Even now that she's gone.

Even now that the Pitch boy's killed her.

He had it coming. That's all I'll say.

I knew he'd show up, sooner or later. He's crazy in love with Snow, sure, and he might think that makes him all pure or something _("like Princess Di,"_ Fi would chortle), but at the core, he's just the same as all of us. He's an outcast. He's a monster. He doesn't belong in Snow's normal, easy life.

I knew where to wait for him. I knew where he'd go.

Same as every other vampire who thought they could stick it out.

I'd almost feel sorry for him, really, if I didn't hate him.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

 **Simon**

It took me a while to find the place, but now that I'm here, it looks the same as it did last time, down to the heavyset man who opens the door.

"Yes?" he says.

I stare him down. "I'm looking for someone."

"This isn't the right place for that."

He can see my wings, so at least he knows I'm not a Normal. I had them folded against my back, under my shirt, but they popped out as soon as he opened the door. I wish I had better control.

"Yes, it is," I say, and then: "Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch."

He flinches. Looks me up and down. Wings, tail, tangled curls. I know I'm a mess. I don't particularly care.

"You don't belong here," he says.

"Do you know who I am?" I ask him.

He bites his lip.

" _Do you know who I am?_ "

If I still had magic, the question would be full of it.

"The Mage's Heir," he says.

" _Don't call me that!_ "

He swallows. "The Chosen One. Simon Snow."

My wings relax. I nod.

"Pitch," he says, like he's thinking it over.

"Is he here?"

The doorman says, "He was." He opens the door a little wider. "You'd better come in."

As soon as I step into the bar, the whole room turns my way. It's not crazy crowded, but the bar itself is crammed, and several of the booths are taken. In my jeans and jersey, tan as anything, I stand out like a flare.

"What's he doing in here?" the bartender barks at the doorman.

The doorman says, "Looking for Pitch."

If it's possible for the room to get tenser, it does. The bartender's hand freezes on a shot glass. He leans across the counter towards me, squinting.

"Oh," he says softly.

The bartender leads me through the shadows to the very back of the bar, where Baz flicked his cigarette onto Nicodemus's pool table. There's a few exhausted-looking vampires standing around the tables, but no sign of Nicodemus himself.

"Pitch," the bartender says to the prettiest of the group.

The woman raises an eyebrow. "Who wants to know?"

She looks like the most like Baz out of any of them. Most of the others are shabby, dull-eyed, but this woman has a kind of coiled strength to her. She's tall and young and frighteningly pale.

"Me," I say.

The bartender glares at me.

The woman sets down her glass and cue on the edge of the pool table. She folds her arms and examines me. "You're not even a mage," she says.

"I'm Simon Snow."

She lowers her eyebrow. Raises the other one, and then both of them. "Oh."

"Did Nicodemus take him?"

"The Pitch boy."

I nod. "Did you see him?"

She picks up her drink again, flicks back her long blond hair, and takes a sip. "I thought the Pitches wanted nothing to do with you."

I grit my teeth, frustrated. "Most of them don't."

The bartender's gone away somewhere, his help expended, so I'm alone in a bar full of drunken vampires with a woman who's acting like she wants to tear me apart. Just a typical Sunday morning.

"Did you see him?" I press again.

"Lucrezia," the woman says.

"What?"

"My name. Lucrezia Gall."

If I still had magic, I'd be going off. My voice is tight. " _Merlin and Morgana._ Lucrezia, then. Did you see him?"

Lucrezia chews her lip. Her fangs are out, even longer and sharper than Baz's. There's a speck on the end of one that looks suspiciously like blood. "Yes. I did."

"Where? When? Where did he take him?"

"If he took the boy, it was probably for a reason."

"He wants _revenge_."

Lucrezia shrugs. "Who am I to deny him that? We all have our petty little grievances."

 _Petty._ She smiles at her own pun.

"It's not _little._ He'll kill him."

She tightens her grip on her glass. "Didn't Pitch refuse to let him save his sister? I'd call that even."

" _He'll kill him!_ "

And something just wrenches inside me. It's a wave, a surge, something breaking. All at once I'm full up and hot, and there's red before my eyes and everywhere, and I can hardly breathe.

" _Shit_ ," says Lucrezia, jumping back. "Shitshitshit."

I don't understand what's happening. I haven't felt this way since before I killed the Mage. Before I pushed my magic out and filled the Humdrum up.

"Stop him!" one of the other vampire screeches.

 **Baz**

He takes me to the numpties' den. Of course.

Because he knows. He knows how I froze up in the dark and the cold, and how I could barely make myself go back. Even to find out the Mage's treason. Even to save Simon Snow.

He's gagged me, so I can't cast or bite. He carries me over his shoulder. I'm not small, but he lifted me with ease. There was an expression on his face, when he saw me at the bar, like he'd been expecting me. I still can't figure out why.

We march through the back alleys of London, over Blackfriars Bridge, and down into the tangled bank at the other side. It's a weekend, and early enough that no Normals are out yet. Nicodemus is nervous. He keeps glancing around, his head bumping my hip.

He hasn't spoken since he met me at the door of the club. He said, "Pitch," and I said, "Petty," and then someone behind him shrieked out, " _ **Stiff as a board!"**_

It's a bloody cheap spell, hardly used anymore. He must have really threatened the mage who cast it. It immobilizes you completely, and then you're helpless.

Nicodemus caught me as I fell forward, and dragged me into the club. The men and women sitting inside whooped until he'd pulled me through to the back room. Even the bartender smiled.

If I ever get out of here, I'm going to burn that fucking palace to the ground.

We reach the entrance to the numpties' cave, and Nicodemus hoists me off his shoulders to maneuver me into the hole. My heart's going crazy, everything in me shouting for me to _get back, get out._ I grasp for something to hold onto, but my arms won't move. Nicodemus's mage did their job well.

I didn't die the first time I came here, and I didn't die the second time, either. But I don't think there's going to be any escaping this time.

And then-

How can I describe it?

It's a shift, a change. It hits my gut, hollows out my insides. A shock in the magickal atmosphere.

Nicodemus doubles over, dropping me just inside the tunnel to the numpties' den. At the same instant, the spell on me breaks. The mage who cast it must have been affected the same way.

Winded from the fall, I grope for my wand.

 **Simon**

I wake up in the back of a car.

There are two people in the front, talking in low voices. Lucrezia's driving. Her straight blond hair and slender form are unmistakable.

I shift up on my elbows, trying to stay quiet, but it's no use. Fucking vampires. The muscular, swarthy man in the passenger seat whips around immediately, and gives me a gleam of pearly fang.

"You got your magic back," Lucrezia says, without fanfare.

I make a noncommittal noise, because I can feel it's gone again, and if I think about it all too hard, I might explode.

"Why?"

"I don't know."

Her hands tighten on the wheel. "You would have killed us all."

"Probably," I agree wearily. "Why didn't I?"

"Me," says the man.

Lucrezia sucks her teeth, like she's bored. "Such modesty. He put you to sleep," she tells me. " **Sweet dreams."**

"You're a magician?" I study the vampire. Now that I think about it, I _can_ feel his magic-sweet and cloying, almost offensive.

"A few of us are," he says. "Not many."

"Where are you taking me?"

Lucrezia says, "Wherever Nicky took the kid."

"Why?"

"Because Damien told me I should. And it's best to listen to him."

I look at her, and then at Damien. He says, "We don't want the Chosen One as an enemy."

"I'm not the Chosen One."

"Your name's still dangerous." He gives me a little nod.

"Well, thanks," I say.

 **Baz**

It's not much of a contest. Without his borrowed magic, Nicodemus has got nothing. No fangs, no weapons, no magic. Nothing to live for except killing me.

" _ **Head over heels!"**_ I scream, and he drops right over.

"You _bastard!_ " he shrieks. I know why he's so pissed; that's Ebb's favorite spell. I've seen her use it on misbehaving students at Watford. It's harmless. It's hers.

 **Simon**

When they let me out of the car, I run.

They took me as close as they could get to Blackfriars' Bridge. I don't know for sure that Baz is here, but Lucrezia and Damien know that Nicodemus took him, and where else would he go? This is the beginning of every nightmare Baz has ever had.

 **Baz**

" _ **Hit the ground!"**_

Down he goes, and down he stays. He's panting and crying, a sniveling excuse for a vampire in cheap jewelry and Doc Martens. I can't see how Fiona ever loved him.

 **Simon**

There he is.

Kneeling over Nicodemus. Wand in hand. Tall and straight and beautiful and _Baz._

I almost cry with relief.

 **Baz**

"I'm sorry," Nicodemus whispers.

I look at him. He could have been great. And this was the life he chose. This was the path he took.

He has nothing. He has nothing.

He lost the last of what he had when Ebb died.

I say, "No. _I'm_ sorry."

 **Simon**

I slow, because something's changed. Nicodemus is looking up at Baz with surprise written all over his face. And Baz-Baz has softened. He's getting down beside Nicodemus. He's touching his hand. He's saying something. _I'm sorry._

Oh.

Oh, Baz.

 **Baz**

I wait. Watch the emotions change on his face: hate, surprise, recognition.

Is that forgiveness?

I set down my wand.

 **Simon**

I hope he knows what he's doing. Setting down his wand-that's unlike Baz. He must know what he's doing. He _must_.

 **Baz**

And then he's up.

He's so fast. So fucking fast. He's scratching my neck, reaching for my eyes, shoving my head to the side so I can't reach him with my fangs.

Dimly, I hear a scream. It sounds like Snow, but that makes no sense.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

 **Simon**

I go for Baz's wand first. I'm not sure why. Just old lessons from Watford, beaten into me for eight years straight-you keep your wand by you, you keep your magic strong.

(" _Close your eyes and light a match,"_ Baz said.)

And then I'm picking it up and feeling the familiar emptiness, the ache, the nothing where there used to be something, and for some reason my magic won't come now-of fucking _course_ -and so I throw the wand down again.

Something in me knew, as soon as Baz set his wand down. The way Nicodemus looked at him. Hunger. Calculation. He was waiting for his moment. I'm not sure why I didn't move then. I might be too late now.

Nicodemus is at his throat, scratching, biting. He hasn't got his fangs, but he's still got a full set of teeth, and he's making use of them. There's blood on Baz's neck and his chin, his head angled away from me, his mouth open. And Nicodemus forcing him back, back, back.

I can see them both shuddering, twisting, even Baz with his iron self-control. Blood spilled. Open wounds. There's so much destruction, right here. Raw hatred and jealousy and blame. The dark and the light.

I hit Nicodemus running, with everything I've got. Super-strength be damned; I can feel the wind go right out of him. We go flying, my wings tangled between us, the point of my tail lodged somewhere in his thigh. Hand, knee, stomach, forehead. I can feel every part of me hit the ground. Even with Nicodemus beside me, losing precious time, I reel for a moment, seeing stars.

" _Snow!_ " Baz screams, somewhere off behind us.

I want to respond, to tell him I'm okay, but I can barely breathe, and also, Nicodemus has just recovered himself. He vaults to his feet, a cut sickly red on his cheekbone. I roll away, but it's not necessary. He's going for Baz's wand.

 **Baz**

It _is_ Snow. What the hell is he doing here?

Merlin. He's going to get himself killed. I thought he _was_ dead, right in that moment where he tackled Nicodemus and they lay side by side and still just under the curve of the bridge.

But he's up now, bleeding, and for a second the vampire in me takes over and all I can see is that patch of red spreading on his forehead. I have to choke it down, the bloodlust. I have to remember who I am.

 **Simon**

I dive after Nicodemus again. Get my arms around his legs and haul him backwards.

"Get your wand!" I shriek in Baz's general direction.

Baz looks like he's in shock. He's pale, paler than usual, and a vein stands out in his temple. His hands clench in and out of fists. He isn't moving from his position on the ground.

" _Get your wand!_ " I scream again.

This time he jolts to life. Scrambles over Nicodemus to the wand. Gets his fingers around it. He has to try three times before he can pick it up.

And now-now- _finally_ -my magic comes streaming back.

 **Baz**

Snow's wrestling Nicodemus. The blood's all over both of them, and Nicodemus is shaking, arching, going for Snow's brow, where the gash is. He's completely given in. There's barely a trace of Nicodemus Petty left in him at all.

 **Simon**

I get a hand on Baz's leg. He looks at me like I'm crazy, but then his eyes widen. He feels it. The power. The magic.

 **Baz**

 _Aleister-Crowley._

I can't even breathe with the shock of it, but then he's gripping my ankle, and pushing, pushing his magic into me, and I'm drunk on it. Insane. This must have been the way the Humdrum felt, before Simon filled him up.

He's giving it up for the second time. He knows he can't use it safely on his own-knows he'll end up killing the three of us, or blowing up Blackfriars Bridge. So he's forcing it all into me. I can't imagine what this is costing him. To give up this part of himself again.

 **Simon**

I'm crying. Grappling Nicodemus, shoving power into Baz, and bawling. I'm a nice excuse for a bloody Chosen One, aren't I?

But it _hurts_. It hurts worse than filling up the Humdrum. Worse than waking up in Lucrezia's car without it. The first time, I was saving the world. The second time, I couldn't do anything about it. This time, I'm choosing it. I'm pouring it into the boy I love to give him a chance to survive.

Sometime in the future, Penny will have some brilliant theory as to why it came back in the vampire bar. Sometime in the future, we'll all sit before the fire and laugh. But right now, I'm losing myself. I'm losing the fire. I'm losing the Chosen One.

When I'm done, I'll be even less than I was before.

 **Baz**

" _ **Twinkle, twinkle, little star!"**_

It's the first thing that comes into my power-drunk mind. The spell-not even a spell-that I used after Snow and I banished the dragon.

Nicodemus cries out as the light vanishes. Suddenly I'm floating, untethered. Stars all around me. Snow's magic still racing through my veins. His hand leaves my leg, and there's a grunt from Nicodemus. Snow must have caught him in the stomach. _Good man._

 **Simon**

For a second I'm blinded, dizzied by the stars. Then I turn from Baz, the last of my magic gone, and back to Nicodemus. I was in plenty of scrappy orphan fights as a kid, before I ever knew I was a magician. I can win this one.

 **Baz**

" _ **Nonsense,"**_ I say, and the swirl of night vanishes.

 **Simon**

My fist to his face. Roll over. A punch to the gut. He groans, a low, primal sound. His eyes are closed. He's given up.

Then Baz is looming over both of us, face unusually flushed, wand held high. He swoops down towards Nicodemus like a bat, and my magic erupts from every part of him.

" _ **Goodbye!"**_

It's not a real spell. It's not even on the edge of being a real spell. It's a command. I've given him enough power that he can lace any word he wants with magic.

Nicodemus screams. And screams again.

And then he's gone.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

 **Penelope**

I've been ringing and ringing. Hours. It's almost one in the morning by now-six in London-and Simon still hasn't answered. The **Drop it** wore off long ago.

Micah makes two cups of coffee and brings me one. He looks exhausted. Poor Micah. When he sits down beside me, I can't help it. I throw an arm around his shoulders and pull him to me for a kiss.

"Well, that was nice," he says, flippantly, but he's smiling, gripping my hand. We haven't been affectionate in a while, and I forgot how nice it is.

"I love you," I say.

"I love you too."

He rubs a pattern into the back of my hand, his thumb insistent. "Any word?" he says.

"None."

"Dammit."

"Yeah."

We sit in silence for a moment, the phone belly-up on the table. Then I turn to Micah and put my other arm around him. "The shock," I say, "earlier."

He nods. Around midnight, something caught us both. A discrepancy, a change. I was on my eleventh call to Simon, and I dropped the phone. It just came right out of my hands. Would have shattered if it hadn't landed on the carpet.

"It reminded me of something," I say.

"Everything reminds you of something."

I press on. "My mum said when Simon went off for the first time, she threw up."

Micah raises an eyebrow. Disengages my arms so he can reach for his coffee and take a sip. "And?"

"And," I say, poking him. "And. Didn't you feel like throwing up? Earlier?"

He was in the kitchen, making a bowl of cereal for himself. I heard him shout from my position crouched on the living room floor.

"A little," he admits, covering his mouth with his coffee cup. Then his eyes go wide, and he chokes, sputtering dark liquid across the table. "Penelope-no! You don't think he got his magic back?"

"I don't know." I'm cautious, testing the waters. "I don't know if it was him, or something else, but it was like that. You know it was."

He sets his empty cup down. He has the same expression that I know I do-fascinated, wild. "It was. It was. Holy shit." Micah never swears. "Merlin, I think-Holy _shit,_ Penny. We're all born with a certain amount of magic, right?"

"Yeah. I mean, that's what they tell us."

He nods. "But...there have been theories countering that. I use my magic day in and day out, and I've never been counted as particularly powerful, and yet I never run out. I get tired, sure, but the power comes back. So a bunch of mages think there's something feeding me. Us. All of us. Something giving us more magic whenever we run out. Like a well, or a spring. And...and maybe Simon's got this, too. No, of course he has. Only when he killed the Humdrum, he, oh, Christ, I don't even know, he got rid of all his existing magic, and the force of it just kind of scabbed over the entrance to this well. I sound crazy, Pen. Back me up here."

I'm nodding. "No, you're right. You're right. "

"But like I said, it was just a scab. So when something comes along, something that activates a lot of magic in all of us-"

"Love," I say, "or hate, or fear."

"Right. When that comes along, the scab just tears open."

"And his magic…"

He looks at me. "Well. It would all come flooding back."

 **Micah**

I've been thinking about this for weeks. Months, really. I didn't want to get anyone's hopes up, though: least of all Penny's. I think she took the loss of Simon's magic harder than Simon did.

But now, I can see her getting into it. I can see the light in her eyes. She's tracing the possibilites-that little hole inside of us, that link to the free-flowing stream of magic, that unconscious connection to everyone and everything-

She slams her mug down, and I put out a hand to steady it. Her face is bright, her lips parted. "It has to be Simon. It _has_ to be."

I shake my head. "Think of all the mages in the world."

"But who else gave up their magic like that?"

I want to have an alternative for her, someone faraway and distant and unrelated to our lives. Someone not Simon. Because anything that activates that much magic, that much emotion-

Penny's naive. She thinks, like something out of a storybook, that love can heal anything. It's not love. Love isn't that strong. It's hate. Fear. Anger. Pain.

 **Penelope**

I prompt him again. "Who else gave up their magic like that?"

He looks at me, helpless. I know that helpless face of his. I know there's something he's thought of, and isn't telling me. Bloody Micah, stupidly chivalrous. Thinking he'll protect me by leaving me in the dark.

"No one," he says, finally.

That means he thinks it's Simon. Good. I _want_ it to be Simon.

"Why do you look like that?" I say.

"Like what?" He blinks, trying to smile. His teeth are crooked. The only thing out of place amongst his perfectly symmetrical features.

"Like you're scared."

"Aren't you?"

I spin the phone round and round. "A little. I mean, yeah, but less so than before. He can handle himself if he got his magic back."

"He hasn't called," Micah says.

"Simon hates the phone."

I'm not sure why I'm making excuses, all of a sudden. Is it because I want him to be okay? I study Micah's hands, strong and sure on the edge of the table.

"Look," he says, stumbling. "Penelope. Love isn't...isn't strong enough, to break that scab."

I think of the other emotions I listed. "So you're saying-"

"He's got his magic back, sure," he says. "Let's pretend that at least has happened and everything's fine and dandy." ( _Americans._ ) "We still have the reason his magic came back in the first place."

"Maybe he's just worried about Baz."

"He would have gone off long before, then. Baz left at seven or eight."

"So something new happened."

"It must have."

"Don't say _it must have_. Nothing's for sure." My mind is whirling, my breath coming short. "Damn. Damn. He followed Baz. He found him. And...Baz broke up with him?"

Micah's brow furrows. "Would that be enough? To set him off?"

"You don't know Simon. He thinks Baz hung the moon."

"His mother did."

"That's true."

We share a rueful smile, remembering Natasha Pitch and a time before the Mage. Then Micah shakes his head. "I don't think Baz broke up with him."

"I don't want to think he did."

"He loves him."

"Baz is flighty."

Micah laughs, a quick snort. "Penny, if there's one thing that Baz is not, it's flighty."

I blush. "Okay, fine. So something else, then. Fear. Anger. Pain."

"He could have gotten hurt."

"Physically?"

"Yeah."

I purse my lips. "That would take an awful lot."

Micah's face is solemn. "He hasn't called…"

" _Micah._ You don't think-"

He raises an eyebrow, waiting.

I can barely finish my sentence. "You don't think he's died?"

He looks away.

"Screw you." I punch the table, and wince when my knuckles hit wood.

"Penny." He grabs my hand and pulls it against his chest. "Easy. There could be another explanation."

I'm not crying, but I'm close. "He can't have gone and died on me. He can't."

"I'm sorry I brought it up. It was dumb. He's probably not dead."

I've always thought that when Simon Snow died, the world would stop for a bit. The passing of the Chosen One would not go unnoticed. It would rock the World of Mages to its foundation.

Micah curves his arm around me. "Pen. Come back to me." He taps the phone on the tabletop. "Call him, okay? Maybe he'll pick up this time. Maybe he's just had no service."

That almost makes me laugh, because in the disaster of this night, the reality of having no cell service is just mundane enough to be funny. I reach for the phone, turning against Micah's arm so there's solid contact at my back. Simon's number is familiar. Immediate.

I put it on speaker. It rings twice, then three times. Four. Micah's arm tightens around my shoulders. Five. I reach for the hang-up button.

And then there's a click.

We both freeze. When I twist to look at Micah, his eyes are wide.

"Simon?" I say.

"Bunce?"

It's not Simon. It's Baz, and he sounds like he's been through hell and back.

"Baz!"

"That's my name."

Surely he wouldn't be so flippant, so sarcastic, if Simon was dead. I find Micah's hand and grip it tightly. "Where's Simon? What's going on?"

Baz laughs, a clipped, ugly sound. "Snow's fine. I'm fine. We're all fine. Except maybe Nicodemus."

"Nicodemus?" Ice flashes in my veins. "What the hell?"

"I went to the bar in Covent Garden," he says.

"Shit. No."

"Snow's already given me a full lecture. I don't need another one."

There's a vein pulsing in Micah's neck. He says, "You scared Penny half to death."

"Well, I'm half-dead myself, so maybe we can have a little party." He's bored, now, nonchalant, but there's an edge to his voice like he's a few steps away from breaking. "Look, Snow's coming back from the loo. Can I call you later? Can you wait that long?"

"I want to talk to Simon," I say.

"Of course you do." He sighs. "I'll put it on speaker."

 **Micah**

I've never liked Basilton Grimm-Pitch.

The way he talks, especially. It's like every word out of his mouth is meant to insult you. Sharp and arrogant and graceful.

Yes: graceful. All of him is graceful, actually. He's a study in slender motion and gray eyes. But it doesn't improve his disposition any.

Penny's clutching my hand, her knuckles white. She's got a look on her face that could kill. Poor Penny. She should have been in bed hours ago. Not dealing with this shit. We should be lazily talking, about to fall asleep. My hand in her hair. Her bare feet chilling mine.

I have to jolt myself out of the fantasy. Simon's talking.

"-so sorry, Penny."

"It's not your fault!" She starts to cry, and I put my other arm around her. "You idiot. You absolute idiot. It's not your fault."

"I should have called."

Baz cuts in. "Were you going to do it in between punches?"

"Punches?" I say. This is a surprise. I can't picture Simon Snow fighting anyone, let alone by hand. He killed the greatest enemy of the magickal world _by accident._

"Rolling around on the ground like a great filthy wrestler, too," Baz says, sounding pleased.

"Was this before or after you went to the bar?" Penny spits.

"Oh, after. Long after." There's a pause. His voice breaks. "Look, Bunce. There's no way you're going to punish me more than I've already punished myself."

Penny closes her eyes. "I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry." He's still arrogant, even when he's apologizing. "It was incredibly stupid."

"Why?" she says.

"I just wanted...to live."

"You could have told me," says Simon.

"I could have done a lot of things."

His voice has gone dangerously gentle, though, and there's an inaudible murmur from Simon, and then a sound like they're kissing.

" _Morgana,_ " Penny says, disgusted, but she's grinning despite herself. "Get a room, you two."

"Excuse me," says Simon, "but I just rescued my boyfriend from the dead, so if you'll give me a minute-"

They kiss again. Penny and I look at each other, and I grimace.

"It wasn't really _from the dead_ , was it?" she says, when they've finished.

Baz laughs, low and throaty. It's the sort of uncomfortable laugh that makes me picture his Adam's apple as he does it. "He's exaggerating. Just the numpties. Almost."

"Oh, Basil-"

" _Oh, Basil-_ " he mocks her. "Not the _numpties_."

"Leave her alone," I say, hotly.

"Bunce can take care of herself." He pauses. There's another murmur from Simon. "Snow would like me to mention the fact that Nicodemus wants to kill me."

"He's not taking it seriously enough!" Simon says.

"I _am_ taking it seriously enough. I'm just choosing not to go around moaning about it like a total tosser."

"Nicodemus brought you to the numpties?" Penny says.

"Yeah. Got his mate to cast _**Stiff as a board."**_ He says it carefully, no magic in it. "Then Simon's magic hit, and the spell broke."

"I told you it was Simon," Penny says to me, triumphant.

"You were right." Then I amend: "We were both right."

"Just me," she says.

"Fine."

"You know?" Baz says, but he doesn't sound all that surprised. He's used to Penny. "About the magic."

"Yeah," Penny says. "Micah had a theory. Basically, there was a...a clogged-up entry hole for it, and when whatever happened happened, the hole unclogged itself and let all the magic in."

Baz takes a quick breath, like he's interested. "That would make sense. He was scared, and angry, and there was some chavvy vampire after him, when he came to the bar. He says that's the first time it came back. Then they put him to sleep, because he was about to go off, and when he woke up, it was gone again. But it came back again-in-in the middle of the fight with Nicodemus. So it would make sense."

It's odd that he's saying _he_ instead of letting Simon speak for himself.

"Can you cast now, Simon?" Penny says.

There's a rustle of fabric, and something like a whimper from Simon. Baz's voice drops in a reassuring hum. He returns to the phone. "He-Snow, is this okay?-he lost it all again. The magic. Pushed it into me so I could fight Nicodemus."

Penny's mouth opens, and she gapes for a moment. I know how she feels. It's losing a limb, regaining it, and losing it again. It's letting go of a part of yourself you're not sure will ever come back again.

"You brave, beautiful little fuck," Baz says, quietly. I'm not sure if he means us to hear.

"Will it be like this every time?" Simon whispers.

"There won't be an every time. I won't let there be. You're never doing such a stupid, brave, impossibly selfless thing again. I'm going to teach you to be a monster like me."

"You're not a monster."

"Baz," Penny says. "Maybe we'd better go."

His voice cracks again. He's clearly exhausted. "All right. You take care, Bunce. Keep your boyfriend safe."

"I will," says Penny, and we grin at each other, because Baz knows: I'm the one who needs to be taken care of. "I love you, Simon."

"I love you too, Penny. Bye, Micah."

"See you guys."

The line clicks dead, and Penny drops the phone. She's speaking all at once, a torrent of words, and crying so hard I can barely understand her. I grab her arm. "What? Pen, honey, what is it?"

She's sobbing. I'm afraid she's hurt herself, or she's pissed at Baz. I'm afraid because I don't know how to manage tears.

Then she tilts her head up to mine and kisses me, and it's just exactly right, and when she pulls away she's smiling, and her eyes are red. "It's okay. It's okay. I'm just so _happy_."

"Pen…"

"I'm not an idiot. You don't have to look at me like that. I know they're in danger. I know _we're_ in danger. But can we just forget everything with Nicodemus for a second?" She pauses. Tears up again. Smiles. "He's alive. Simon Snow's alive."

 **Penelope**

I always knew the world would come to a halt. A shock of magic just isn't enough to herald the Chosen One's passing.

 _He's alive._

 _Simon Snow's alive_.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

 **Baz**

I don't know what I just did.

I was high on all that power. I was full to the brim with it, drunk on it. It was like being filled with fire. Burning down to nothing, and then rising up to burn again.

And he was hurting Snow (well, actually, Snow was hurting him, but it wouldn't have lasted). And every spell that Watford's ever taught me just flew right out of my head.

All I could think was _goodbye._

Like I was bidding farewell to a loved one. Like I was sending Nicodemus off at the fucking train station.

And the goodbye did something, infused with Snow's magic. It worked like a spell. The Magic Words teacher at Watford, Ms. Possibelf-she's told me single words ordinarily can't be used like that. After all, _the_ is probably the most common word in the English language, but if you go and shout **The!** and put all the power you can into it, it still won't do a thing.

Somehow, though, I defied the rules. I said **Goodbye** , and it made Nicodemus disappear.

So is that what it feels like? To be Simon Snow?

I could have done anything with that power. I could have split the moon in two. I could have turned back the tide.

And all I did was say goodbye.

 **Simon**

We drive to a local coffee shop, three blocks from the flat, and I go in amongst the Normal commuters so I can use the loo. It's only when I'm zipping up my fly that I realize I'm not sure what happened to Lucrezia and Damien.

I'm going to tell Baz, but then he's on the phone with Penny and Micah when I come back, and I forget. There's kissing and apologies and Penny crying, and then they start talking about my magic, and I push my head into Baz's shoulder and refuse to come out. He strokes my hair as he listens to them.

"You're not a monster," I say again, after we've all said our goodbyes.

He slides my phone into the glove compartment with his free hand. "I eat animals. I wanted to drink your blood. I left you."

"You wanted to drink my blood?" This makes me raise my head. Not in disgust: in fascination.

"Yes," he says. Matter-of-fact. He turns the key in the ignition, but doesn't put his foot on the gas. Just lets the car idle outside the shop. "As long as I've known you. But more so, in the fight."

I look up at him. "I saw when you were wrestling Nicodemus-"

"That was bad. You're worse."

My hand goes automatically up to my forehead, and I press the edges of the scratch. "Do I hurt you? Every time I bleed?"

"Simon…" he says. "It's not your fault."

"So yes. I do."

"Christ, Snow." ( _Simon._ ) "Not more than anyone else. Nicodemus's blood is diluted, like the rest of him. Your blood's just like any other mage."

"I'm not a mage."

"Whatever!" He lets go of me. "It's not like-it's not like you're _special._ Not like your blood smells any better than, oh, I don't know-Bunce's. I'm just around you more. I've been around you for eight years. Nine years. It's how it is. Usually, I can keep myself in check, but I had to let myself go, to fight Nicodemus."

His hand drops. He slumps back against his headrest. "I told you. I'm a monster."

"Baz, no."

" _Baz, no._ "

"Stop that."

He stops. Then he reaches down into the glove compartment again and pulls out a Band-Aid. "I'm sorry," he says.

He holds it out like an offering, and I take it.

 **Baz**

We go home. Snow curls up on the couch, and I go to the kitchen to make tea. It's once again offensively Normal.

 **Simon**

From the couch, I can see Baz's expression. He's pissed at the dishes, the tea, the fridge. Everything ordinary about this flat. I get up from the couch and go into the kitchen.

"All right?" I say, touching his shoulder.

He turns, and his expression eases into a sneer. "Yeah. You?"

"Look," I say, not meeting his eyes. "If Nicodemus isn't dead-if he comes after you again-"

"Don't start this again."

I shake my head. "I just meant-after. After we've gotten rid of him. We can travel. Move. Hunt goblins. I hear they're coming back to Essex. Stay with Fiona, if that doesn't expose you. You know? We can...we can live a little more. I know you want that."

 **Baz**

He's so selfless it bothers me. I know more than anyone that Snow just wants to forget. Forget the Mage and the Humdrum and the years before the two of us. And now he's offering me this?

"I know you'd be unhappy," he says.

And the way he looks at me-so trustingly. It's a punch to the gut. It's knowing I'll never be good enough for this boy.

I let my guard down a little. "You don't have to worry about me," I lie.

"Yes, I do. Look what you did when I stopped."

He's smiling, but somewhere in there is an accusation. I wish I was better at apologies. I wish I was better at pretending this life he's promised, this life of hunting and adventure, always on the move, doesn't appeal to me.

"Okay," I say.

"Okay."

And his smile grows. It doesn't look fake at all. That's all he really wants to do-make me happy.

I can't help it. I smile, too. It probably looks more like a sneer, but Snow doesn't seem to mind. He grabs my biceps and tugs me close to him and kisses my smiling lips.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

 **Simon**

"I'd like to speak to Simon Snow, please."

"Speaking."

"Thank God. It's Damien."

It takes me a second to place the name, but when I do, my heart misses a beat. I stand, folding my laptop shut. "Let me go outside."

"Where are you?"

"Starbucks."

I'm trying to keep calm. Baz, behind the register, is looking at me, but I motion for him to get back to his customers.

"Can we meet?" Damien says.

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"Lucrezia's not with me."

"Still."

"Simon, I fed an hour ago. I'm safe."

I hesitate. "What's the rush?"

"There's no rush. I just want to see you."

I'm outside now, attempting to wrangle my laptop into its bag. "You're a-" I lower my voice. "A vampire."

"Not by choice." He pauses. "You live with the Pitch boy."

"That's different."

"I haven't tasted human blood for ten years."

"Baz hasn't tasted human blood for his entire life."

There's a gust of air, and a thump, like he threw something. His voice is tight. "Nicodemus."

"What?"

It's been a month since the incident, and we haven't heard a word. Baz is starting to get restless again.

"Nicodemus," Damien says again. "I know where he is. I know what he wants to do."

I'm silent.

"Hyde Park. West parking lot. Thirty minutes."

And he hangs up.

I go back inside to clear the rest of my stuff off the table. Coffee, scone, napkins. I toss the rest of the scone in my mouth. It doesn't take long to get to Hyde, but I want to be there before Damien. I want the edge, for once.

"Snow."

It's Baz. Behind me, scowling.

"What?" I'm defensive. I can't help it, really.

"Who were you talking to?"

I push my chair in. "Um..."

He follows my gaze to the bulge at the bottom of my laptop bag, and when his gray eyes widen, I know he knows what it is. He barely manages to keep his voice at a whisper. "You have your _wand?_ Snow, what the fuck are you doing?"

"I…" I flush. "I keep it with me. I have, since the bar. Just in case."

He rubs a hand over his jaw. "Just in case?"

"Just in case my magic comes back again. Just in case I can get rid of my wings."

His lips curl. "That's what this is about? Your wings?"

He spelled them tidy earlier, under my shirt, but they're already starting to lash around. "So what?"

"I like your wings," he says.

"I hate them."

"They're endearing."

"They're terrible."

He reaches around me to touch the jut of my tail. I have to wear all my jeans low, now, which Baz finds incredibly amusing. "So if you were in danger and your magic came back, you'd spell your wings away first? And then fight whoever's after you?"

"I have _some_ of my priorities straight, Baz."

He smirks. "That's not very reassuring."

I think he likes this, the way I talk about everything now. The way I say _magic_ and _power_ all casual. The freedom it gives him. He doesn't have to be so careful around me anymore.

"So?" he says, letting go of my tail. (Which is good; some of the Normals around the table were starting to give us odd looks.)

"So what?"

"So, whoever you were talking to."

I look at the phone. _Hyde Park. Thirty minutes._ I have twenty-five to get there.

"You looked worried," Baz says.

I sigh. "I was worried. It was Damien."

He squints. "The bloke from the fight? The vampire mage who put you to sleep?"

"Yeah."

"That's who you were talking to."

"Yeah."

"And?"

"He knows something about Nicodemus. Where he went, and what he's going to do next. Damien asked me to meet him at Hyde Park."

Baz grabs my shoulder. "You can't do that."

"Why not? He convinced Lucrezia to let me find you."

Baz flashes white fang, his fingers digging into my shoulder blades. "I don't trust him. I trust him less than Lucrezia. He had no reason to let you come look for me."

"He's softhearted," I say.

"He's a vampire."

"I want to find out what Nicodemus is planning. I want to make sure you don't get hurt again. Let me go."

"I'll go with you."

I meet his gaze, and he sneers, finally releasing my shoulder. My wings stir the neck of my shirt. "It'll make him angry," I say.

"I can protect you."

"I can protect myself!"

"Not very well."

I glare at him. He folds his arms, infuriatingly calm and smug.

"Fine," I say. "Fine. But bring your wand. And keep quiet."

"Since when are you the boss?"

"Since I nearly died trying to save you from yourself."

I pause.

" _Twice._ "


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

 **Nicodemus**

Something's happened to Lucrezia. Some spell gone wrong, or just that tosser Damien getting to her worse than usual. It's really fucked her up.

Ever since Pitch and his boyfriend got me in that brawl of a fight, Cree's been walking 'round me like I'm made of glass. All, _Nicky, what do you need?_ and _Nicky, can I get you anything?_ Just 'cause I'm a little sore and a lot pissed doesn't mean I'm some crippled idiot. I'm just biding my time. I'll hit when I'm ready, and I'll hit hard.

The thing about what she's doing, though-Cree-isn't that she's suddenly being all nice. She's always been nice. A bit cold, sure, but aren't we all? It's the way she's doing it. Like she's trying to put me off. _Oh, Nicky, you're not ready for that yet. Rest a little while._ Grabbing my arm when I say I'm gonna head down to the bar. _No drinks._ Then we'll get in a catfight, yelling and hissing, and by the time we're both done I'll be too exhausted for the bar, anyway.

I know she's up to something. And I know it's gotta be about Damien, in one way or another, 'cause she's been in love with him since the day he Turned her. She'd follow him anywhere. Cree's one of our best (she Turns more Normals than any of us, when we're in the mood for recruiting), but when she's 'round Damien it's like she's a bottle with the bottom tapped out.

She's coming in now with a mug, her long blond hair all bound up, and as she moves to close the door, for a second the light comes weird off the back of her head and she looks like Ebb.

"Tea," she says, shoving the mug at me.

"Don't want it."

"It's good for you."

"You're not my mother."

When I don't take the mug, she sets it down and takes a seat next to me. She's stopped looking like Ebb. Looks like a stranger, now. Won't meet my eyes.

"Where's Damien at?" I say.

She flinches. "Out."

"Hunting?"

"Something like that."

He went hunting earlier, 'bout an hour or two ago. If he's out again now, he musta got practically nothing before.

I slide my tongue into the gaps where my eyeteeth used to be. Finally pick up Cree's tea and take a sip. "I need to get out, too. I'm thirsty."

"Not now," she says.

"I can't live on preserved blood forever."

"Your leg-"

"Fuck my leg, Cree, I'm going insane in here. Just down to Hyde."

Her fingers clench. "Not there."

"Why not?"

She flushes. Turns away. Cree's shit at lying.

I sit up and throw off the covers. The edge of the blanket knocks the mug, and a second later there's tea all over the floor. I ignore it. "Where's Damien again?"

"Hunting," she says, but she's got this look like she wants to get out.

"Yeah. Where's Damien?"

Her whole body just goes stiff, and she tips her head back so her throat's exposed. She's wearing a necklace, something Ebb mighta worn. Just a plain gold token on a leather cord. Like the cross the Snow kid had on. She says, "Don't go after him, Nicky."

I'm on my feet, ignoring the seize of pain in my left leg. "He's with them, isn't he?"

 _Damien._ I'm gonna kill him. I'm gonna kill Pitch and Snow, and then I'm gonna kill Damien, and I don't care if that means we'll lose Cree too 'cause all that matters is getting rid of them all, getting them outta my life, outta Ebb's-

Cree's hand's on my shoulder. She's pinching the nerve there, pushing me back. Wants me down and in the bed and outta the way. Wants me weak. "You can't go."

"I bloody well can."

I shake her off, knocking her down. She's strong, but right now, I'm stronger. "Hyde," I say, stepping back towards the door. "Easy enough."

"You don't have a wand." She struggles upright, bracing herself against the bed. "They'll rip you to bits."

"I know where to find one. I got nothing to lose."

Her jaw's set, her hands trembling. "Why do you want this, Nicodemus?" It's the first time she's called me by my full name.

"I want my sister at peace."

"She is at peace."

"Says who?"

"The Mage killed her, and he's dead."

"Tasha's boy did, too. I could have saved her. She's got unfinished business, Cree."

"She's _dead._ "

I hiss at her from the doorway. "You don't talk about Ebeneza like that."

"When are you going to wake up?" she shouts. "When are you going to realize that nothing you do is going to change _anything?_ "

" **Shut your mouth!"** I scream back at her, but the magic doesn't go anywhere. ( _Even a gelded one_.) I say it again. " **Shut your mouth!"**

She laughs, all cruel, like she knows a secret. "Keep trying, Nicky. Once you go get yourself a wand, why don't you come back and kill me, too? Maybe that'll make Ebb rest easy in her grave."

I'm shaking so hard, I can barely see. I shriek a long, wordless curse, stagger backwards out of the room and slam the door closed behind me.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

 **Agatha**

I came.

Mostly to see my mum. She'd been on me for ages, texting me updates and complaints. Said she'd drag me out with magic if I didn't come myself. That's the last thing I wanted, so I just grit my teeth, loaded Lucy into a carrier, and caught a plane for London.

It's spring break. Awful weather. The whole way over I was clutching my suitcase, squeezing my eyes half shut, worried about bumping into a magician or anyone I know, but now that I'm safely in a cab, I've been able to relax a little. Lucy's leaning her head out the window. Every so often she'll look back at me, like, _Join me._ I wonder how my mum will take her.

In one of her texts, Mum said they'd finally sold my horse. I miss Shay sometimes. Wish he could have come out to California with me. I've told a few of my boyfriends about him, and they all laughed, because no one has horses in San Diego. They should have seen us together, a few years ago, jumping four foot two. I could probably text Dad for a picture.

I haven't texted Dad since I moved out, though. He said he supported my decision, said it was okay to take a break, but he had worry lines in his brow, and his hug was preoccupied. I figure if he wanted to hear from me, he would've texted me. Mum, on the other hand, has been pestering me nonstop. She wants to know everything. Every boyfriend. Every best friend. Every grade and if I'm using magic and who I've met and what I'm up to. In return (though I don't give her much), she tells me about Simon, and I delete her texts without reading them. I get enough of that from Penelope.

She-Penny-said she and Simon found a flat together, and just as I was deciding not to feel jealous about that, she said Baz was always over, and the flirting and kissing was getting to her. For a minute I just sort of sat there, stunned. I almost never text her back, but I did then. Just, _what?_ I thought maybe she'd mistyped. Meant to write Jaz, or Bella. Some blond-haired, willowy girl Simon'd found at uni.

But no. Baz. That's the weirdest part of everything. Penny in New York-I can deal with that. Simon's magic gone-I can deal with that. Simon dating Baz-

Anyway.

A few months ago, though, right after Penny texted me to say she and Micah were getting married, the texts just stopped. I hate to admit it, but she kind of left me hanging. Don't get me wrong-I didn't want to be a bridesmaid or anything, and I didn't want to know their address in New York, but I still checked my mobile almost obsessively for a week or two. There was nothing. Just one of my exes trying to get back together, and my best friend providing commentary on people's ugly selfies.

I think that may have been one of the reasons why I came out. My mother's been on my case since January, and I could have gone out for midwinter break instead. But at that point, Penny was still texting me.

Now, Lucy turns her head again and licks my cheek. The cabbie reaches out a hand to fondle her ears. He's heavyset, dark-skinned, with a knotted scar on his cheek.

"How's it going, there, miss?" he says.

"Fine, thanks."

The cab rolls to a stop at a red light, and the driver leans back with a sigh. "Bloody rain," he says. "Just look at it out there."

He's been tense the whole way over, his jaw tight behind his smile, and his fingers white-knuckling the wheel. The weather's absolute shit. Nothing like sunny California. I'm terrified we're just going to roll right off the road.

"You doing okay?" I say.

He gives a sort of so-so motion with his hand. "I've been better."

The red changes to green, and he revs the cab up again. For a second, the wheels skid in the rain, and the cabbie sucks his lips in. He downshifts. The engine whirs. The tyres spin aimlessly. We jerk left.

"Shit," the cabbie whispers.

We're on a narrow, litter-strewn road, about to leave London proper, and there's a ditch to our left. No other cars. I clutch Lucy until she whines with pain.

Then the car gives a violent heave, and fishtails sideways. I scream. The cabbie's clutching at the wheel, stamping on the brakes, and it doesn't feel like the rain anymore. It feels-

It feels-

Well, it feels like magic.

 **Nicodemus**

Got Isabel to come down to this little back-alley street with me. She's the only vampire mage who's on my side, who's willing to do some stuff under the radar. Sabotage. She did that **Stiff as a board** to get Pitch.

We wait, huddled in the ditch, 'til we both feel magic. The first time, we're too slow. The Jag races by-nice car-and all that's left is a trail of blue exhaust. Thirty minutes later, Isabel's soaked and pissed, and so'm I. We wait a little longer. Isabel casts a **Rain, rain, go away** , but she's nowhere near strong enough for it.

Then there's a trickle of power. Enough of it. We're both bolting up, halfway hidden in the ditch, and Isabel's wand goes straight out, and she whispers a spell too quiet for me to catch. We don't even see our target. Just Isabel's wand and the rain coming down and Ebb's voice in my head saying, _Avenge me,_ though I dunno if she ever said something like that.

A second later, there's a scream.

Isabel follows me to the overturned cab. The driver's sacked out, and Normal. Easy meat. I haul him outta the front seat and lay him next to the ditch. The girl inside's a better find. She musta been the one who screamed. And she's magic. Weak, diluted with neglect, but magic. She's got what matters.

 **Agatha**

They're vampires. _They're vampires._

They dragged the cabbie out of the car, and now they're going for me, and I didn't see what they did with him. Did they bite him? Did they drink his blood? Are they going to do the same to me?

The female one's pointing a wand straight at me, while the male one pats me down. I know what he's looking for, but he won't find it so easily.

"I left it at home," I say.

He backs up from me and gives me a smile, and _he hasn't got his fangs._ There's just empty space there. The female has them-I know, I can see them-but the male's are gone. He runs his tongue into first one space, then the other. "Really," he says. Not a question. "What's your name, little mage girl?"

I shouldn't have come back. _I should never have come back._

"Agatha Wellbelove," I say, my voice wavering.

The female licks her upper lip. "Come out of the car."

I undo my seatbelt, and, cradling Lucy, push myself free of the wreck. My ankle wobbles under me, but I can stand.

"Hands up," says the male.

"My dog-"

"I'll take her."

"Don't!"

He takes her anyway. Sets her on the ground, none too gently, and plants a booted foot on her leash. He's wearing beat-up Doc Martens over skinny hipster jeans.

"Hands," he says, so I put my hands up. "That's better." Then he's kneeling at my feet, unzipping the long black sheath of my boot. He draws my wand out from where it's squeezed between my calf and the back of the boot. When he looks up at me, his pupils are diluted.

"They always hide it there," he says.

 **Nicodemus**

I take the wand and leave the girl. Once she realized that I was gonna take it, she got right fiery, blustering on 'bout her father and her famous friends. Wellbelove, she said. The name struck a chord, but it's only when Isabel and me are climbing back in the car that I realize: Snow's old girlfriend.

I tell Isabel. She's unconcerned. Gutty as fuck, she is, just like Ebb.

"Heard she high-tailed it for California," Iz says. One hand on the wheel, the other rummaging in her bag for a cigarette. "Scared of magic. She can't still be in touch."

I'm reassured, mostly by the brash edge to her voice. She ain't scared of anything.

"Hyde Park?" she says, fumbling to get her lighter open.

I take the lighter, flip the top, and light her fag. Then stick it in my own mouth and take a deep drag. Neither of us should be smoking. Neither of us care.

"Yeah," I say, handing her back her cigarette. "Hyde Park."


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

 **Simon**

We've got time to kill before Damien shows up. Fifteen minutes or so. Baz is walking in tight little circles around the parking lot. Rain stamps his clothes to his body.

"Baz," I say. "Sit _down._ You're driving me crazy."

He looks at me. "I'll have my wand out. The whole time. If he so much as touches you-I don't care. He'll burn."

"Crowley, you're psychotic. Come here."

He does. And he's stubbly and worried and cute, and I can't help it. I kiss him right there in the drenched parking lot, where anyone can see.

I mean, I'm already out to Watford. I'm already out to all my closest friends. Why not be out to the rest of London, too?

"I love it when you call me psychotic," Baz says, and he trails his fingers across the base of my tail.

"I love it when you do that," I mumble into his neck.

He slides the length of my tail through his hands, and then hooks his fingers in the waistband of my jeans. "What-that?"

I feel like it would be going too far to tell him how I feel when he does that. Baz already thinks I'm a total nut.

"Or that?" he continues, settling his grip around my hip bones.

"Um…"

He kisses me on the nose. There's a scandalized woman whispering to her husband about three yards away, but Baz takes no heed. He leans his forehead against mine and draws his tongue ever so gently across my lips.

"Or that," he whispers. Not a question.

I'm just about to reconsider and tell him _exactly_ what I think about all that, but before I can, there's a tap on my shoulder. From the way Baz's eyes narrow, I'm guessing it's not anyone I'm desperate to see.

"Excuse me?" says a high-pitched voice.

I turn. It's the woman who was whispering to her husband. She's clutching her purse to her chest like we're about to steal it, and staring Baz down defiantly. Her hair falls in rain-soaked corkscrews.

"Yes?" Baz says.

"You and your...partner. You're making me uncomfortable."

"Well, that's bloody unfortunate," he says.

The woman scowls. "God hates sinners."

"I was a sinner from day one," Baz volunteers. Icily.

"There's still time to change."

Baz sneers. "I don't think so. We're in love, you see."

Her lips go all twitchy and disapproving. "Could you move yourselves to another part of the park?"

In answer, Baz grabs me and kisses me on the lips. Hard. The kind of kiss he gives me when we're alone.

"You're going to hell," the woman says, over the noise of our kiss.

Baz breaks it just long enough to say, "I've heard it's lovely there. Why don't you come, too?"


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

 **Damien**

Cree calls.

"Damien, you can't go."

"I have to. I have to tell them."

"You'll kill yourself. He knows."

"What?"

"It was my fault. I can't keep a secret; you know I can't. Can you get out of there?"

"He can't hurt me, Cree."

"He's got a wand now. He can. How close are you?" She's breathless. Slightly hysterical.

"It doesn't matter. I have to warn them."

"You can't!"

"They'll be helpless if he comes. When he comes."

"Just come home. We can forget it ever happened."

"I can't."

" _Softhearted_." She spits the word.

"And proud of it."

"God, Damien-"

"It's okay."

She sighs. "Be careful."

"I have a wand, too. He'll be weak, anyway."

"Isabel's with him."

"She's a sorry excuse for a magician. I'll be home by four."

Rain beats the windshield. Cree's silent, just her breath whistling through the speaker. I can hear the catch to each inhale.

"I love you," she says eventually.

"I love you too, baby."

"Say it like you mean it."

I hesitate. "This isn't a good idea."

Pause.

She says, "I have to go."

"Cree, no. Don't-"

"I believe that's called _rejection._ " She laughs bitterly. "I'm not that dumb."

"You're not dumb at all."

"Dumb enough to fall for you."

I don't say anything.

"Don't die," she says.

"I won't. Look-"

"I don't want to hear it."

"I do love you."

There's a second of quiet, and then another shaky laugh. "I know. That's the problem."

And she hangs up.

 **Lucrezia**

I've been in love with Damien Remend since the day I met him.

I'm not the type of woman to do that. Fall in love, I mean, let alone at first sight. I'm sensible. Ask anyone. Until I was Turned, I ran a management consulting business in east London. I shed boyfriends like tissue paper, and didn't cry a tear for any one of them. My smile was tight, and the ship I ran was tighter.

Then the vampire broke down my door.

Damien told me later that it was a fluke. He'd been a young loner, and starving. Ended up in the ritzier part of London, without any easy homeless targets. I'd stayed late to work, and he'd seen the light in our first-floor office.

I was made of pain.

Spinning in it. I would have died if it hadn't been for Damien. He was hunting, and following the smell of blood. When he saw the loner savaging me, he pulled him off of me and threw him in the street.

He tried to save me, but it was too late. So he Turned me instead. To keep me alive.

I don't remember much about that day. Just fragments. The pain. The papers on my desk spilling to the floor. Blood coloring the loner's fangs. The line Damien's body made, crouched over mine.

No other vampire would have saved me the way he did. Anyone else would have passed me off as just another Normal, lost to a bloodsucker's insatiable thirst. But Damien-

We throw the word _soft-hearted_ at him like an insult, but it's not.

My sense vanished with my mortality.

I love him.

I love him more than any of my dispensable boyfriends. I love him more than anyone I've ever known.

And he's driving straight into danger. He's the weaker army converging on the battlefield. He's risking his life to save the Snow brat and the boy who loves him.

 **Simon**

The woman stood for a while throwing curses at us, but when Baz put his hands under my shirt, she finally left with her husband. Now it's just Baz and me in the empty parking lot, and the rain's coming down so hard that the Aero bar in my pocket's melting.

"This'd better be worth it," says Baz.

We've moved apart, and he's begun to sneer again. The tip of his wand shows under his sleeve.

"It will be," I say, though I'm having doubts myself.

"He said the other one-the female-she isn't coming with him?"

"Yeah."

Baz exhales. "That's good, anyway. One is better than two. I'd prefer she came, but we've got to take what we can."

"She's worse than he is," I remind him.

"He didn't have a reason to take you to Nicodemus."

"Maybe he's just _nice._ "

"Vampires aren't nice."

"You sure aren't," I say bitterly.

"The difference is, I don't pretend to be."

We stand in silence for a moment. Baz is sulking. I'm fuming. When an appropriate amount of time has passed, Baz starts pacing again.

"Will you _stop_ that?" I growl at him.

He does, but I don't think it's because of me. He leans towards the entrance to the parking lot, mouth open, hair black with rain. His fangs are popping. It's an admittedly sexy pose, but I don't think that has anything to do with me, either.

"You hear him?"

Baz nods. "Coming. Fast." His voice is a little slurred from the fangs.

"Good. He's already late."

I go to stand beside Baz, and he puts his hand on my shoulder. A wordless apology.

"Okay," I tell him.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

A black Chevy truck pulls into the parking lot, sluicing water. Damien's hunched silhouette is visible in the driver's side window. By the time the truck's in park, he's already leaping out, wand in hand.

"We need to get out of here," he says.

"You were late," Baz snaps.

Damien glances at him, then at me. "Get your psycho boyfriend in the truck."

"You said he was nice, Snow." Baz spits on the ground.

"You're trying my patience. We don't have time. Nicodemus is coming, and he's got a wand."

Baz coughs. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

"I'm not. Get in the truck. Both of you. Now."

But it's already too late. There's a red car, lowslung, fat-tired, riding the white lines into the parking lot, and Nicodemus is sitting in the front seat.

 **Baz**

Well, fuck me.

Nicodemus comes leaping out of this really slick Cadillac, and he's got another vampire mage behind him, and they're both coming for me with their wands out, shouting spells. For a moment there's everything, everything, and Snow screaming, and the feel of his magic bursting out, and then there's a bolt of pain and nothing all at once and a great long high-pitched humming note and I can't see Snow anymore, and the whole wide world is made of _not._


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

 **Simon**

He's dead.

Baz is dead.

I can't breathe. I can't see. It's like everything I know is falling in on me.

And he's just _lying there,_ eyes open, his whole chest covered in blood. Staring and staring. The attack came so fucking fast, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what I could do.

So much magic, now.

But too late.

It's all too late.

I throw my head back and I scream and scream and scream.

 **Damien**

The sound just splits my ears. It feels like I'm bleeding from the outside in.

It's magic. Raw magic. You can almost hear the bold text of it; the punctuation. Exclamation points and this wordless shriek, going on and on and on.

I throw up a shield, quick as I can, but Nicodemus and Isabel aren't so lucky.

 **Simon**

They go away.

I don't know another way to describe it. As I'm screaming, pieces of them are just crumbling. Blowing away. Bits of Nicodemus, scattering. It takes five seconds, and then there's nothing left.

But I can't think. Can't feel any kind of triumph or sorrow. Because that's my Baz, lying on the ground, looking at the sky. That's my Baz. Dead.

I stumble to him, and go down on one knee, and the magic's still pulsing through me, so that when I fall onto his chest, gripping his shoulders, my wings in a paradox around me, I can feel the thrum of it through my fingertips.

" _ **Baz,**_ " I sob. " _ **Baz. Baz, come back. Come back. I love you, Baz, you arsehole-please.**_ "

 **Damien**

It's hard to watch.

I can't even wonder at the strangeness of it all-Isabel and Nicodemus blowing away, the Snow boy's aching scream. There's no room for anything but Simon's pain.

 **Baz**

" _ **I love you, Baz.**_ "

and there's this voice in my head and i'm trying to remember who it is because it sounds like someone i used to know but it can't be because there's nothing nothing at all and i'm made of little pieces and

" _ **Come back. Come back.**_ "

And SIMON.

 **Simon**

He takes a breath.

I swear I see it. The rough inhale. The rise and fall of his chest.

Most of the magic has drained away, but there's enough for me to try one last time.

" _ **I don't know what I'd do without you.**_ "

It _was_ a breath. Aleister Crowley. He took a fucking breath.

 **Baz**

He's leaning over me, his face streaked with tears, his whole body weighed down with magic. Just talking and talking and crying until the power bleeds out of his words.

And I remember:

 **I love you.**

"Simon," I whisper.

 **Simon**

"You called me Simon," is all I can think to say. Stupidly.

"You twat. Of course I did."

"Baz, I don't understand-"

"I don't either."

"Baz-"

"Shhh."

"I just-"

"Hush."

"I worry-"

"Don't."

"But-"

"Simon?"

"Baz?"

"Here."


	15. Epilogue

Epilogue

 **Lucrezia**

Damien comes in with his hair a mess. Blood all over his clothes.

"My God, what happened to you?"

"Nicky's gone."

"For good?"

"For good."

I nod. Then take another look at him. "Damien, you look like shit."

"I know."

There's a pause. He meets my eyes, and something's different.

"Cree," he says.

"Yeah?"

"I love you, baby."

I tilt my head towards him. "You mean it?"

He nods. Then steps forward into my arms.

 **Agatha**

I call Minty to come and pick me up. She does it without question. Silent. She's out of her comfort zone, and for once, I'm glad.

She drops me at the airport. We don't exchange a single word.

The next morning, I fly home with Lucy. My latest boyfriend is waiting for me outside of security. We kiss, and he holds me. I don't have to pretend to be anything I'm not.

Mum texts me a bunch. I'd told her I'd be coming out for spring break, so she was expecting me, and when I didn't show up, I guess she went mental. Texted everyone-Simon, Penny, Minty. Even Baz.

I text her her back when I'm safely in the passenger seat of my boyfriend's car. _Sorry. Something came up. Not this time._ She rages, but that's okay. I did what I could. I stopped when I had to.

California, here I come.

Maybe someday I'll find the courage. But I don't think that day's today.

 **Baz**

" _ **In justice. In courage. In defence of the the weak. In the face of the mighty. Through magic and wisdom and good.**_ "

It comes. I wasn't expecting it to-it's only shown up a few times before today, when Snow and I practice in the flat we've rented-but I guess the Sword of Mages has decided my need is great enough. Decided, maybe, to finally let go of Snow.

Now the blade comes down with a whistle, severing the goblin's head from its neck. Snow was right-the goblins _did_ come back to Essex (the tossers), and they've been making an incredible fuss. With the Mage gone, no one really wanted to step up to help. Except me and Snow. The powerless winged bloke and the gay vampire. Go figure, right?

"Nice one," Snow says, from my left.

I make him stand back and watch, because if I didn't, he'd probably fight the goblins with his bare hands alone. After what he did to Nicodemus, I don't trust him with anything even remotely close to an enemy.

"Better than anything you could do," I say.

He glances at me, wiping his hands on his jeans. His eyes are fierce, and for a second I'm scared.

"Put that away, Basilton," he says, in a low voice. "I want to kiss you."

A year ago, I'd probably have sneered at him and kept the sword out. Kept him guessing. But now, after everything we've been through (and yeah, maybe because the throatiness of that voice is quite possibly the sexiest thing I've ever heard), I just slide the blade back into nothingness and take a step towards Simon Snow.

"Kiss me, then," I say.

And he does.

The End


End file.
